Friday, January 18, 2008

Ladies, here are three things guys don't want you to know.

Ladies, here are three things guys don't want you to know.

If all goes according to plan, my daughters nicknames at school will be “girls that wear so much clothes.” I know snowsuits will be hot in Georgia, but as I mentioned before, hopefully they won’t mind.

But unless modesty becomes a trend or a really famous Amish girl becomes someone that teenagers learn to emulate, I’m stuck. It’s not going to be easy to raise girls. I get that. I probably deserve that for how stupid I was to the opposite sex when I was young.

Here’s the thing though, maybe I can take lessons from my days of foolishness. Maybe I can equip my daughters with the kind of wisdom that can only come from a lifetime of bumps and bruises.

It’s doubtful I’ll ever write a book called “The girl’s guide to jerks” but I could definitely at least share three lessons I plan to pass on.

Maybe you’re still in college or on the dating scene and can use this. Chances are these will seem really obvious, but if you already know them, I promise you’re miles ahead of some of the girls that I ran into while in college.

So here they are:

1. Depth PerceptionA counselor told this idea to a friend of mine and I think it’s solid. Everyone has a handful of things they don’t want to share with strangers. Joys or pains that feel too big to introduce in a casual conversation. Maybe you didn’t get into the college you wanted or you once got fired from a job. Could be that you still suck your thumb, it can be anything. What happens though is that some guys have a handful of things they’ve grown comfortable with over the years. You might have a hard time talking about a family member that died but they don’t. In fact, they’re perfectly fine with it. So what they do is tell you all about it. And you think, “wow, this guy just shared something really personal. I should too.” You open up and make yourself really vulnerable because you think he just did. But he didn’t. He’s creating a depth perception issue. He’s appearing deeper and more honest than he really is.

2. Reverse Psychology Again, super obvious, but you’d still be surprised how often people get trapped by this. In this scenario the guy simply uses reverse psychology to push the girl into doing something she wouldn’t normally do. A guy will say, “You’re such a goody too shoes. It’s so different to be around someone Puritanical.” Rarely does someone want to claim that title. And the guy continues, “You’re not wild. You don’t do crazy things.” Again, the girl hears a challenge and before long, she finds herself saying “I am too, you just don’t know me. I do crazy things!” And then they make out.

3. I’m the opposite. This is for the girls that have a boyfriend/husband. Anytime you express even the smallest bit of dissatisfaction about your boyfriend to another guy, please expect them to reverse the statement. If you say that your boyfriend doesn’t love the color blue and you wish he did, that guy is going to say, “I love blue. I live for blue. I spoke with a doctor about getting my skin turned blue surgically.” If you’re boyfriend hates the movie “Pride and Prejudice,” get ready to meet the world’s biggest Pride and Prejudice fan at work. Not cool, but true.

I need to throw out a few disclaimers for this piece:1. This isn’t just something guys do. Girls do it too.2. Girls are smart, this is not about that, it’s about guys being manipulative.3. There are lots of honest guys out there. This is about jerks.4. These are really simple. If you already know them, that’s great.5. I’m sorry that I did anything like this to girls. I was a jerk.

I hope that if a guy ever tells one of my daughters that she’s a prude she ends up laughing her way out of the car. Just looking back as she leaves and muttering between big guffaws, “He actually tried to reverse me.”

That’s all for now. The party is tomorrow night. If you’re into praying, pray that we’ll all collectively get out of the way and let God do some cool things.